Author's ​Note:A few more 50 words pieces from my forthcoming Four Bits — Fifty 50-Word Pieces,which will be out soon with Grayson. These three pieces have a common theme in my mind. Wasn't it Wallace Stevens who talked about (and I paraphrase) Desire and reality's resistance to it? That's what these are about, in my mind, in some way. In "Time Heals All" the desire would be for that adage to be true. But we know better. In "My Father's Watch," the desire would be to not allow "objects" to have so much sway over us. But they do. In "Lionel Hampton..." this formula works a little differently. The first time I heard Lionel there was no desire, no expectation. But in those few minutes, my life was changed forever. I experienced an instantaneous life-long love of Lionel Hampton and of jazz! How blessed.

​“TIME HEALS ALL” — THAT ILLUSION As if your loss were made of colossal acres of black paper the edges too far to reach, too expansive,a continent, at nightfall. As if I could fold that continent into millions of origami birds that would soar upand out toward where the sky is beginning to brighten.

​MY FATHER’S WATCH

I thought of it in a drawer, and believed, for a moment, that because it was cast indarkness, its barrels would be empty, its jewels worn to nothing.

I decided to have the watch repaired. $385. I couldn’t afford it any more thanI could afford not repairing it.

THE FIRST TIME I HEARD LIONEL HAMPTON PLAY I WAS SEVEN YEARS OLD AND I WAS COMPLETELY MESMERIZED NOT BY THE VIBES BUT BY HIS INCREDIBLE VOCALIZATIONS AS IF THE MUSIC WERE SO POWERFUL THAT EXPRESSING IT ON HIS INSTRUMENT WAS NOT NEARLY ENOUGH HE HAD TO VOCALIZE IT TOO

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